Life-Size McLaren Senna

3 Replies

Lego McLaren Senna Life-Size

No TLCB hasn’t suddenly gone all low-res, that really is a life-size McLaren Senna hypercar, and it really is made from LEGO bricks. Almost a quarter of a million of them.

Over 2,700 hours were required to built it (plus a similar number in design) with the end result weighing around 1.7 tons. That’s considerably more than any real McLaren road car.

Lego McLaren Senna Life-Size

This life-size LEGO creation is not entirely bricks mind, as LEGO designer Lubor Zelinka and the team of thirty model model-makers behind it have used actual McLaren Senna wheels and have fitted a real McLaren Senna seat, steering wheel and starter button into the cockpit.

That means this life-size LEGO McLaren can be sat in, and with all 467,854 pieces glued you won’t be able to knock anything off! You can do just that too, as the model goes on tour this summer, including a trip to the Goodwood Festival of Speed where previous life-size builds have featured.

Lego McLaren Senna Life-Size

If you’re a UK-based reader of this site, or you fancy a trip to the UK, you can get your tickets for Goodwood here, and if you fancy your own LEGO McLaren Senna, but don’t have a quarter of a million bricks at your disposal, LEGO’s official Speed Champions McLaren Senna set is available to buy now for £12.99.

Lego McLaren Senna Life-Size

Desert Roll

Leave a reply

Lego Monocycle

We don’t understand steampunk at the best of times, so we’re really lost here. No matter though, because this ‘Wasteland Monocycle’ by Flickr’s Daniel Church is achingly cool. And that’s before you see it working. Yup, this sort-of-but-not-quite-Victorian-oddity is motorised, allowing it to roll across an endless desert for eternity. Click the links to see how!

Purchase a Pagani

1 Reply

Lego Technic Pagani Huayra

This is a Pagani Huayra, one of the fastest, most aerodynamically clever, exclusive and expensive cars ever to reach production. Unobtainable then, but not this one. This is Jeroen Ottens’ incredible Technic recreation of the Pagani hypercar, and you could own it as the model is due to be auctioned for charity.

With working cantilever suspension, gull-wing doors, steering, an eight-speed sequential gearbox, highly detailed V12 engine, and even the Huayra’s active aerodynamics, Jeroen’s Technic Supercar is one of the most technically advanced yet. Just like the real car.

There are more images to see at Jeroen’s Pagani Huayra Flickr album by clicking here, where you can also find details on the charity action date and a link to the complete build specs.

Lego Technic Pagani Supercar

Perfect Pitstops

Leave a reply

Lego Pitstop

LEGO can be used for all sorts of wonderful things. From robotics to designing buildings, the little Danish bricks have found applications far beyond their original remit.

Reader Erik A.H. Loeffen recently contacted us to let us know how he has put his LEGO pieces to use, and it’s inspired! Erik has written a PhD thesis on the ongoing treatment of cancer in children, and has used both LEGO and the racing pitstop analogy to set out improvements that could be made in children’s cancer treatment.

Lego Pitstop

Erik has created several models to accompany his thesis, merging the traditional Formula 1 pitstop with medical treatment, which include a McLaren MP4/4 (above) and a Lotus 72D (below), each driven by a child undergoing cancer treatment.

You can read more about Erik’s work by visiting his WordPress site by clicking here, and if you’d like to support children and adults affected by cancer (which will include many of us writing and reading this site during our lifetimes) then we highly recommend the charities Stand Up to Cancer, Cancer Research, and Macmillan, amongst many others.

Lego Pitstop

Making Hay

2 Replies

Lego New Holland TM140 + Claas Quadrant 2200

It’s a gloriously sunny spring day here at TLCB Towers, and whilst it’s nowhere near hay season yet we’re looking forward thanks to Eric Trax and this spectacular New Holland TM140 and Claas Quadrant 2200 baler combo.

Eric’s superb New Holland tractor not only looks fantastic, it’s packed with remote control functionality all of which can be controlled remotely via bluetooth thanks to a third-party SBrick. The drive and steering are driven by Power Functions motors, as are the front and rear hitches and power-take-off.

Lego New Holland TM140 + Claas Quadrant 2200

That PTO sends drive to the Claas Quadrant baler, powering a variety of complicated-looking mechanisms which ultimately culminates in the machine excreting a block of tan pieces (hay) in a manner similar to a horse doing its business. It’s a mighty clever build and one that you can recreate for yourself as Eric has made instructions available too!

There’s much more to see of both the New Holland TM140 tractor and Claas Quadrant 2200 baler at both the Eurobricks forum and via Eric’s Flickr photostream, plus you can watch the models in action via the video below. Click the links above to make hay, whilst we await the outcome of the office sweepstake betting on how long it’ll be before we have to extract a TLCB Elf from the inner workings of that baler…

YouTube Video

Big Brown

Leave a reply

Lego DAF NTT 2800 Truck

This huge slice of brown brilliance is a DAF NTT 2800, as built by Arian Janssens who has not only recreated the tractor unit beautifully, he’s added a huge matching box trailer behind it too. Brick-built lettering and custom chromed pieces complete the build and there’s more to see on Flickr via the link above.

BuWizz Train Pull!

1 Reply

Yes you read that right. The guys over at BuWizz, who have designed a rather clever fully LEGO-compatible bluetooth control/battery, have decided to showcase the power of their little brick by a pulling train! With standard LEGO motors (and only three of them!). Don’t believe us? Take a look via the video above!

If you’d like to see how you can use the power of BuWizz yourself (even if you don’t have an old-timey train carriage handy) you can read our review of the BuWizz device by clicking here.

BuWizz

Front Loaded

Leave a reply

Lego Technic Volvo L120H Front Loader

No, not your Mom’s Tinder pictures, but this rather neat Volvo L120H front loader from newcomer Kio Liex. Similar in look to LEGO’s own excellent 42030 Volvo L350F Technic set (which became even more excellent when we fitted it with an SBrick bluetooth brick) but a bit smaller (just like the real L120H), Kio’s model is packed with Power functions goodies.

An XL Motor delivers the drive (also turning a 6-cylinder piston engine), whilst a Medium Motor powers the articulated steering and another the bucket tilt. Lastly a Large Motor raises and lowers the bucket arm with enough power to raise the whole model off the ground.

There’s much more of Kio’s remote controlled Volvo L120H front loader to see at the Eurobricks forum here, where a link to videos can also be found in the discussion thread. Click the link above to check out the complete gallery of images and join the discussion.

Lego Technic Volvo L120H Front Loader

Stranger Blazer

3 Replies

Lego Chevrolet Blazer K5 Stranger Things

Here in TLCB’s home nation police cars all look pretty much the same, so a coffee-coloured police car really would be a strange sight. Not so in the Unites States though, where police livery varies widely from state to state. That makes this 1980 Chevrolet Blazer K5 police car not strange at all, but it is a starring vehicle in the TV show ‘Stranger Things’, being driven by Police Chief Jim Hopper, and that can be very strange indeed.

This ‘Stranger Things’ Chevrolet Blazer was suggested to us by a reader and comes from TLCB Master MOCer Andrea Lattanzio aka Norton74, who has recreated both it and Hopper’s cabin beautifully in Lego form. Click here to head over to Andrea’s photostream for all the strange goings on.

Lego Chevrolet Blazer K5 Stranger Things

Mile High Club

2 Replies

Lego Technic Aircraft

Aircraft are not often created in Technic form. Now we’re a car blog so that’s not really a problem for us, but it is a shame, as their technical features are perfect for the principles of Technic. A case proved by previous bloggee Lipko, who has constructed this wonderful two seat light aircraft and packed it with ingenious technical functions.

Lego Technic Plane

Lipko’s plane features realistic working ailerons, tail rudder, elevators and flaps, each controllable via the cockpit and/or a Hand of God mechanism. Up front is a flat-4 engine with propellor pitch control, there’s retractable landing gear with a steering front wheel, an opening canopy and engine cover, and a clever ‘manual propeller drive’ that allows the propellor and engine to be spun.

There’s much more to see of Lipko’s excellent aircraft via both Eurobricks and Brickshelf, plus you can watch all those features in action courtesy of the YouTube video below. Take a look and join the Mile High Club via the links in the text above.

YouTube Video

Fabuwars

2 Replies

Lego Fabuland Tank

Fabuland, one of LEGO’s frankly weirder themes, was not known for brutal war machines piloted by bloodthirsty critters. It was more about popping to the post office to say ‘hello’ to cheery Mr. Mole before planting some daisies in a window box. Not any more though.

Time has toughened the inhabitants of Fabuland, and today they are equipped with an array of terrifying machinery courtesy of Flickr’s Andreas Lenander, whose mind must be a very dark place indeed.

Here we have Buster Walrus and Felix Fox riding atop a gloriously cuboid tank fitted with what looks like a sperm gun. It probably isn’t. Whatever it is we’re pretty sure it’s deadly and there’s more to see at Andreas’ ‘Fabuwars’ album via the link above.

Dragula

Leave a reply

Lego Munsters Dragula Hot Rod

Some vehicles are metaphorically coffins-on-wheels (this, this and this for example), but today we can go one better! Designed by Hot Rod building legend George Barris, this amazing machine is the Dragula, as constructed for the 1960s TV comedy ‘The Munsters’. This marvellous Model Team recreation of the scary sportster is the work of Tim Inman (aka rabidnovaracer), and comes complete with side-stack exhausts, lantern head and tail lights, and Grandpa Munster himself. Head over to Tim’s photostream via the link above for a spooky good time.

Lego Munsters Dragula Hot Rod

Light Artillery

Leave a reply

Lego SPA TL17

This is an SPA TL.37, a light artillery tractor built by a subsidiary of Fiat during the Second World War for Royal Italian Army. Powered by a huge 4-litre 4-cylinder engine, with four wheel drive and four wheel steering, able to climb a 40-degree slope, and capable of 40km/h whilst pulling 75 or 100mm artillery pieces, it looks like a seriously fun vehicle for gadding about in the desert. Unfortunately for the Axis Powers their gadding about in the desert did not go well, but that’s not exactly the fault of SPA TL.37. There’s more to see of this one courtesy of Rebla of Flickr – click here to take a look.

Lego SPA TL.37

Maranello Magnum

Leave a reply

Lego Ferarri 308 GTS

This is a Ferrari 308 GTS, made (more) famous by its continued appearance in 1980s Hawaii-based drama ‘Magnum PI’, and built from 1975 in Maranello Italy before being replaced a decade later by the 328.

Designed by Pininfarina the 308 also has the claim of being the slowest Ferrari ever made, as a 2 litre version (known as the 208) was produced to dodge a tax in Italy that applied to cars over 2000cc. Strangely the 208 was still a V8, just a pointlessly small one, and thankfully ‘Magnum PI’s Thomas Magnum got the proper 2.9 litre 240bhp version.

This excellent recreation of Magnum’s mid-’80s Ferrari 308 GTS comes from Flickr’s Peter Blackert aka Lego911 and there’s more to see at his photostream via the link.

Japanbulance

1 Reply

Lego Toyota HiAce Ambulance

Chances are that if you’re reading this from (or have ever been to) Asia, then you’ve been in a Toyota HiAce. They are everywhere, performing every function it’s possible for a van to do. Hopefully though, you haven’t had to travel in this particular variant; the HiMedic Ambulance as used throughout Japan.

This superb Lego version of the Toyota emergency response vehicle comes from Ralph Savelsberg (aka Mad Physicist) of Flickr, who has not only recreated the outside of the HiMedic beautifully, there’s a fully-kitted interior behind the working sliding doors too.

There’s much more to see of Ralph’s Toyota HiMedic at his photostream via the link above, and you can read our interview with him as part of the Master MOCers series by clicking here.

Lego Toyota HiAce Ambulance